In this month’s issue of Vanity Fair, a reader named Larry Grossman wrote in with his interpretation of the final scene of “The Sopranos,” in response to the magazine’s recent oral history of the show. It’s one of the better and more logical breakdowns of the finale that I’ve seen in the five years since the show ended, so I am just going to post the whole thing in a blockquote instead of mucking it all up with a bunch of babbling.

The last episode of “The Sopranos” was inspired. Here’s why: One of the main themes of the show was the ongoing problems that the main character, Tony Soprano, had with panic attacks. This started with the first episode, which led to his therapy with Dr. Melfi. Tony’s son, A.J., later had those same feelings. This panic-attack thread was prevalent during the entire run of the show.

The final episode had Tony, Carmela, and A.J. in a booth at the diner. Many sinister people were lurking, and the viewer feared for their safety; as Meadow tried clumsily to park her car, the suspense built. Then, right when the payoff is about to happen, the TV goes black. Everyone thought they’d missed it because they lost their cable. All viewers had a panic attack. Thus, we felt what Tony felt.

Good enough for me. Now all that’s left is for someone to explain WHY MEADOW CAN’T PARALLEL PARK A DAMN CAR. Jesus. That spot was HUGE. Any semi-competent driver in the world could have drunkenly navigated a tank in there. Not that I advocate driving a tank around New Jersey while intoxicated, but, I mean, if you’re gonna do it, you could do a much better job. EASY. I wish the show had ended with some heroic citizen pulling her out of the car and cutting her license in half in the middle of the street. Closure is important.

While it’s adorable that some Vanity Fair commenting coxcomb thinks the finale was all about him, it’s about as valid as my Lords of the Underground finale theory.

See, LOTUG rapper Do-it-All was one of the black guys in the final scene, and one of the most memorable lines in his group’s biggest hit, “Chief Rocka” was, of course, “What goes up must come down”, a nod to Blood Sweat and Tears’ “Spinning Wheel”, which was also referenced in Sopranos episode S06E14 “Stage 5″ when Paulie says “Ride the painted pony, let the spinning wheel glide”, when toasting the memory of NY boss Johnny Sack, who TOTES DIED IN THAT EPISODE YOU GUISE

I was talking about this finale yesterday on Dustin’s other site as part of a Lost discussion. I still think it great in concept but the worst television finale of all time in execution. I shouldn’t have to create my own interpretation of the main character’s fate. Some loose ends are fantastic. This was an abortion.

One scene has Bobby and Tony discussing death and what they think happens when you die. Tony’s theory is that everything just goes black and that’s it. I think Tony died at the end, and hopefully AJ and Carmella too.

What I honestly think: The screen goes to black because if they kill them outright then there’s no chance for a movie, and if there’s just a near miss then it’s just like all the other attempts on their lives. The only thing he COULD do was leave it unresolved.

I would accept these interpretations except the last few seasons had such terrible writing and abandoned plots that I don’t think the writers were capable of something as complex and original as causing the viewers to have a panic attack.

Inspired? Huh, I thought it was lazy as fuck considering the money I spent on DVDs and the time I spent watching the damn show. We deserved a proper ending. Not one that just allowed Chase to go back to the well when he wants to buy an island somewhere or just ignore the story because he has moved on. I don’t care if they just did a montage of each character “AJ remained a gigantic pussy and ultimately ODed on ectasy” The ending wasn’t inspired it was lazy.

Honestly this seems like a pretty weak interpretation. And even if Chase did have something like that in mind, it still doesn’t solve the problem of the fact that WE DON’T KNOW WHAT THE FUCK HAPPENED TO THE CHARACTERS.

I always thought the ending was deliberately ambiguous, leaving the viewer with the same level of uncertainty of Tony’s fate as the character probably has on a regular basis. The last couple seasons of the show were bad but I thought they finished strong.

I don’t know, would you prefer the family get shot to pieces at the diner and Meadow’s car blow up? Or that they all live and they fade to the credits while the Journey song plays over them enjoying a nice meal?

Or some other ending? To clarify, I meant the last few episodes of the last season were a strong finish, and that ultimately I was ok with the cut-to-black ending because of how I interpreted it’s meaning.

I prefered a ending. Whether I would have liked the ending or not. It isn’t my job to figure out the ending..it was the people who write the shows job. It reminded me of the time I was at my Dad’s for the weekend(parent’s are divorced) and it was absolutely boring there..but my dad had books..lot of books..So I’d grab the thickest book I could find and read it until I passed out or until I finished it. Well I grabbed the Godfather(I had seen the movie but I knew books are usually different and better than the movies) spent 8 hours straight reading the son of a bitch 5 AM rolls around and I’m about to finish this GREAT book, I turn to the last page and guess what? It is torn out of the book…gone. I start ransacking the box I found the book in, ransacking the house, woke up my Dad who didn’t know where the last page of the book was at 5 am. I have since refused to ever read the last page of that book..

Oh man, you have to read that last page. Most of the characters come back from the dead and he ends it with a zombie apocalypse cliff-hanger.

I see your point to an extent, but I think the difference is that I’m ok with being asked by the writers to interpret something myself. I mean, no matter how the show ends wouldn’t we be wondering what happens next?

I’m with Chazz. I liked the ending — it showed that Tony was never going to be at ease, constantly in fear of his life. It was a nice, slightly-damned limbo fate for him, like Vic Mackey got on “The Shield.”

I think you’re making a mistake by assuming that Meadow is a semi-competent driver. She is clearly not even marginally competent at anything. After all, this is someone who willingly and repeatedly had sex with Turtle. WITH TURTLE.

There is something inherently satisfying by a successful parallel park. When I pull off a a first try success with limited space in front of a crowd I get out of the vehicle and make a lot of eye contact with a “yeah, that’s right bitches” look on my face.

Conversley, if I misjudge, get all over the curb and make a mess of things I slink out and more resemble a perp walk trying to hide my face.